"army" news and stories

Forget unmanned Predator drones and Hellfire missiles; the Pentagon is getting ready to redeploy a decidedly low-tech weapon in the war in Afghanistan: Whoppers and fries.

After enduring seven months of Whopper deprivation, homesick soldiers with a hankering for a taste of the States are poised to finally get their Burger King back, according to Stars and Stripes.

Army Command Sgt. Maj. Marvin Hill announced the policy reversal last week.

"For troops to be able to go and grab a burger or a piece of chicken or whatever, I don't really think it's that bad," he told Stars and Stripes.

This sort of casual, shrug-of-the-shoulders attitude is in marked contrast to the dour pronouncements made by top brass when they decided to boot Burger King off the largest bases in Afghanistan earlier this year, along with Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen, and a number of other American brands.

If you've ever had to eat a Meal, Ready-to-Eat (MRE), my heart goes out to you. From what I've heard, they're not the greatest.

But the Army is trying to change that (though whether they've succeeded is up in the air). They recently offered the new meals, which will go to soldiers fighting in Afghanistan in the next few months, to guests at a Pentagon tasting. And the results? Decidedly mixed.

Not surprisingly, the Washington Post author who tried the food was less than impressed, having grown used to cushy civilian food. But several of the soldiers - some from WWII and some from Iraq and Afghanistan, and most likely used to much worse offerings - deemed it edible and, in some cases, almost decent, which is definitely an improvement .

New meals included chicken pesto pasta, beef teriyaki, and barbecued pork wrap, among others. The meals have increased in quantity and quality since the 1980s and late '90s, and definitely since WWII, where one vet interviewed said they fed the soldiers "eggs cooked in flour."

Some interesting facts I didn't know about MREs: they come in several vegetarian options; each meal is approximately 1,200 calories; and the meals must be able to withstand parachute drops of about 1,200 feet. Oh - and they have a shelf life of about 18 months.

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The US Army celebrated its 231st birthday with cake. A very, very big cake. The ingredient list included 540 eggs, 100 pounds of flour, 30 pounds of butter, 30 gallons of milk and 30 pounds of sugar and it took 17 chefs about 1 week to create. How did it work? It was constructed from layered individual sheet cakes - 50 of them, to be precise. 35 gallons of icing were used to cover and decorate the cake. The finished product was 8.5 feet long by 3 feet wide and weighed more than 250 pounds. It was served at the Pentagon June 14th to approximately 1,500 people.

Elsewhere in the country, individual divisions had their own celebrations with even more cakes.

Granted, this cake - which is still very impressive - doesn't come close to rivaling the world's largest birthday cake, which was built last year in Las Vegas and used 30,000 half-sheet cakes and 40,000 pounds of frosting. The end result was a cake which weighed in at 65 tons.

There is one more cake close-up after the jump, as well as a picture of the world's largest birthday cake.

 

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Thousands of cookies are baked every week and send to US troops overseas. Jeanette Cram runs the nonprofit group Treat the Troops as a way to organize the mailing efforts(with toiletries and other essentials, in addition to the cookies) and there are other groups, too, like America Supports You, which is run by the Department of Defense. The idea behind these programs is not to make a military statement, but to send a taste of home to sons and daughters.  

Yesterday's New York Times had a great article about people who participate in these programs, sending packages and letters. Due to an increased number of individuals, groups and corporations that are participating, the time it takes for a package to reach a soldier is down from a month to just under two weeks. If that sounds like a long time, just remember that even a slightly stale cookie tastes better than no cookies at all.

For more information on how to write to the soldiers, if you're so inclined, you can contact either of the two groups mentioned above. According to Cram, chocolate chip, peanut butter, oatmeal raisin and snickerdoodles are the most popular flavors.

 

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It looks like school teachers aren’t the only ones realizing that gum can be a multi-purpose vehicle. In fairness, it has been used as a non-cigarette nicotine delivery system for several years now, but the US army is putting it to more uses.

Stay Alert is a caffeinated gum developed by Wrigley’s. The cinnamon flavored gum has 100-mg of caffeine per piece, equivalent to a 6-ounce cup of coffee. Dr. Balkin, from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research isn’t worried about the possibility of abuse, though people have been known to abuse caffeinated products such as No-Doz in the past, because “the stuff doesn’t taste that good.” There are other brands of caffeinated gum that college students have been using to say alert for some time now. They include Jolt Gum – which has half as much caffeine as Stay Alert – and Penguin Energy Gum.

The army is also in the process of developing a plaque fighting gum for use by soldiers, who are sometimes unable to have regular opportunities to brush and floss due to the duties of combat. This seems like a product that the dental industry could really get behind, once it has completed testing.